Quantum viewers comprise 15% of broadband users

According to research firm TDG’s first publicly-released consumer segmentation, Cracking the Code: Segmenting Viewers in the Age of Quantum Video, today’s adult video viewers should be understood in terms of segments so unique that they constitute an entirely new interpretative framework for video strategists.

These six categories include:

Young Video Minimalists, who watch significantly less video, almost all of which is streaming;

Senior Video Minimalists, who also watch little video, almost all of which is from traditional linear sources;

TV Traditionalists, who, as the name suggests, rely primarily on live broadcast TV with almost no use of DVRs or streaming;

Quantum Viewers, who watch large amounts of video from both traditional and OTT services on all of their devices.

“In 2006, TDG first introduced the idea of quantum media consumption,” says Michael Greeson, Co-founder and Director of Research of TDG. “That theory accurately described how the entire video value chain – from content production to aggregation, from distribution to consumption – would evolve due to implementation of IP technologies. It predicted a decade ago where the industry and the consumer would be today, and foretells of where they will be in another ten years.”

As first argued, the classic model of video consumption (single screen, a schedule predetermined by a programmer, little consumer control) would give way to quantum consumption (the use of multiple personalised screens and conduits enabling anytime, anywhere consumption). Today the structures and behaviours predicted by the theory are commonplace.

Greeson makes it clear the shift to quantum consumption has to this point been incremental. “We are merely on the path to pervasive quantum consumption, as only 15 per cent of adult broadband users can be described as such.”

Importantly, Quantum Viewers are heavy users of all video services (be it live broadcasts or on-demand, legacy pay-TV or streaming services) and place great value in having access to all their video services on all their devices. Quantum Viewers also display rather unique demographic and techno-graphic characteristics, as do all of the segments identified and explored in this research